Impossibility, like Wine

Related poetry:

1. Wine Bibber I would rather drink than eat, And though I superbly sup, Food, I feel, can never beat Delectation of the cup. Wine it is that crowns the feast; Fish and fowl and fancy meat Are of my delight the least: I would rather drink than eat. Though no Puritan I be, And have doubts of […]...
2. Ode To Wine Day-colored wine, Night-colored wine, Wine with purple feet Or wine with topaz blood, Wine, Starry child Of earth, Wine, smooth As a golden sword, Soft As lascivious velvet, Wine, spiral-seashelled And full of wonder, Amorous, Marine; Never has one goblet contained you, One song, one man, You are choral, gregarious, At the least, you must […]...
3. Wine and Water Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale, But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out […]...
4. Divine Epigrams: To our Lord, upon the Water Made Wine Thou water turn’st to wine, fair friend of life, Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of thy reign, Distills from thence the tears of wrath and strife, And so turns wine to water back again....
5. Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does not know how to drink, My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. The moon has brought the shadow to […]...
6. Bringing in the Wine See how the Yellow River’s water move out of heaven. Entering the ocean, never to return. See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers, Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow. … Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases And never tip his golden cup empty toward […]...
7. Before The Cask of Wine The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes, Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl. The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together. You, pretty girl, wine-flushed, Your rosy face is rosier still. How long may the peach and plum trees flower By the green-painted house? The fleeting light deceives […]...
8. I bring an unaccustomed wine I bring an unaccustomed wine To lips long parching Next to mine, And summon them to drink; Crackling with fever, they Essay, I turn my brimming eyes away, And come next hour to look. The hands still hug the tardy glass The lips I would have cooled, alas Are so superfluous Cold I would as […]...
9. Bring Wine Bring wine, for I am suffering crop sickness from the vintage; God has seized me, and I am thus held fast. By love’s soul, bring me a cup of wine that is the envy of the Sun, for I care aught but love. Bring that which if I were to call it “soul” would be […]...
10. Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff GIVE me women, wine, and snuff Untill I cry out “hold, enough!” You may do so sans objection Till the day of resurrection: For, bless my beard, they aye shall be My beloved Trinity....
11. Parting at a Wine-shop in Nan-king A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop, And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it. With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off; And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting, Oh, go and ask this river running to the […]...
12. Tz'u No. 2 (Wine Joy) To the tune “As in a Dream” I have long remembered The pavilion On the stream The falling sun So deep in wine We did not know The way home How pleasure spent Late returning The skiff Thoughtless Entered A lotus deep place And struggling through Struggling through We scared up From the sand Gulls […]...
13. Come, Send Round the Wine Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief To simpleton sages and reasoning fools; This moment’s a flower too fair and brief To be wither’d and stain’d by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill’d from the same bright bowl, […]...
14. The Wine-Cup is Circling The wine-cup is circling in Almhin’s hall, And its Chief, ‘mid his heroes reclining, Looks up, with a sigh to the trophied wall, Where his sword hangs idly shining. When, hark, that shout From the vale without “Arm ye quick, the Dane, the Dane is nigh!” Every Chief starts up From his foaming cup, And […]...
15. Drinking Song, On the Excellence of Burgundy Wine My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin, Come, open the door to us, let us come in. A score of stout fellows who think it no sin If they toast till they’re hoarse, and drink till they spin, Hoofed it amain Rain or no rain, To crack your old jokes, and your bottle […]...
16. Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend, To welcome home mankind’s mysterious friend Wine, true begetter of all arts that be; Wine, privilege of the completely free; Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong; Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong, Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song! Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came, And […]...
17. Milton: But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming, In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires, In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe: The plates and screws and racks and […]...
18. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
19. The Elixir Teach me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do in anything To do it as for Thee. Not rudely, as a beast, To run into an action; But still to make Thee prepossest, And give it his perfection. A man that looks on glass, On it may stay […]...
20. I took one Draught of Life I took one Draught of Life I’ll tell you what I paid Precisely an existence The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth A single Dram of Heaven!...
21. LOVE DISLIKES NOTHING Whatsoever thing I see, Rich or poor although it be, ‘Tis a mistress unto me. Be my girl or fair or brown, Does she smile, or does she frown; Still I write a sweet-heart down. Be she rough, or smooth of skin; When I touch, I then begin For to let affection in. Be she […]...
22. Ernie Pyle I wish I had a simple style In writing verse, As in his prose had Ernie Pyle, So true and terse; Springing so forthright from the heart With guileless art. I wish I could put back a dram As Ernie could; I wish that I could cuss and damn As soldier should; And fain with […]...
23. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
24. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
25. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
26. I would not paint a picture I would not paint a picture I’d rather be the One Its bright impossibility To dwell delicious on And wonder how the fingers feel Whose rare celestial stir Evokes so sweet a Torment Such sumptuous Despair I would not talk, like Cornets I’d rather be the One Raised softly to the Ceilings And out, and […]...
27. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
28. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
29. Not yet 40, my beard is already white Not yet 40, my beard is already white. Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red, Like a child who has cried too much. What is more disagreeable Than last night’s wine? I’ll shave. I’ll stick my head in the cold spring and Look around at the pebbles. Maybe I can eat a can […]...
30. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
31. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
32. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
33. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
34. To a Steam Roller The illustration Is nothing to you without the application. You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down Into close conformity, and then walk back and forth on them. Sparkling chips of rock Are crushed down to the level of the parent block. Were not ‘impersonal judment in aesthetic Matters, a metaphysical impossibility,’ you […]...
35. Heritage Now the dead past seems vividly alive, And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years, Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some secret spring’s released, And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print, What seemed before a thing […]...
36. The last of Summer is Delight The last of Summer is Delight Deterred by Retrospect. ‘Tis Ecstasy’s revealed Review Enchantment’s Syndicate. To meet it nameless as it is Without celestial Mail Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil....
37. Delight's Despair at setting Delight’s Despair at setting Is that Delight is less Than the sufficing Longing That so impoverish. Enchantment’s Perihelion Mistaken oft has been For the Authentic orbit Of its Anterior Sun....
38. Writing often it is the only Thing Between you and Impossibility. No drink, No woman’s love, No wealth Can Match it. Nothing can save You Except Writing. It keeps the walls From Failing. The hordes from Closing in. It blasts the Darkness. Writing is the Ultimate Psychiatrist, The kindliest God of all the Gods. Writing stalks […]...
39. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
40. As One does Sickness over As One does Sickness over In convalescent Mind, His scrutiny of Chances By blessed Health obscured As One rewalks a Precipice And whittles at the Twig That held Him from Perdition Sown sidewise in the Crag A Custom of the Soul Far after suffering Identity to question For evidence’t has been...